


Clippings

by garglyswoof



Series: Unidentified [2]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, but damn if he still doesnt eat that article up with her byline, frank castle thinks flower meanings are bs, post S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof
Summary: Frank Castle reads a lot at night.





	Clippings

**Author's Note:**

> From this tumblr prompt: does Frank have a pile of newspapers next to his bed (more like a mattress on the floor), with articles written by Karen?  
> Yes, evil anon. Yes, he does.

He doesn’t really think about it at first, just sets down his dog-eared copy of Les Miserables, places marked where if he were a more scholarly man he’d inscribe notes in the margins. Hugo really had a way of distilling humanity.

No, he doesn’t really think about it. He tells himself he’s tearing the story out to make it easier to read, stretched out on the mattress with one pillow punched into submission behind his head. Dull light streaks in from a streetlamp that flickers on and off in that mysterious way of all streetlamps, irregular, without reason. The paper is rough beneath his finger tips, the ink smudging.

Karen Page, the byline reads, and his mouth twitches with something close to a grin if he’d only let it. But it’s post-midnight and he’s still awake, chasing off the only dreams his memories will let him have.  They come less often, and a part of him hates it, hates that it means he’s forgetting, hates how purpose fades with the passage of time.  
  


He swipes at her name with his thumb, an odd gesture he can’t even begin to assign purpose to, and reads. She’s gotten better, become more comfortable with her voice and not pulling punches in her writing. Telling the story like it is. He can hear her saying the words printed across the page, her inflections, her emphasis, her passion.

At least she’s not baiting someone in this article. His eyes flick away at the thought, landing on a police scanner that lies dormant beneath a coating of dust. He’d promised Curtis, and he’s trying to stick to keeping a low profile, but it relies on one Karen Page not being a reckless daredevil in her reporting.

And with her fire, with her goddamn spirit, he thinks, he’s not sure how long that’s gonna last.

The weeks go by and the pile of clippings grows. He fools himself by sticking them like bookmarks into novels that remain unread. The corner bodega would know him by name if he didn’t always buy his paper in a new place every time. It passes the time, he thinks, as he tries to build this new life for himself outside the shadow of vengeance, of unending grief. So it’s another night, another set of pushups, another moment with his arm curled behind his head as his eyes track across the page. It’s something different for her, a byline in the Lifestyle section: Flowers and the Modern New Yorker, it reads, and his brows furrow as he resigns himself to read on.

_Almost everyone’s heard of the old adage - red roses for love, yellow for friendship, but in the latest of New York’s sometimes inexplicable trends, it’s not just the rose that’s being used to convey thoughts and feelings. Flowers are flying off the shelf for their meanings, causing the florists of New York to quickly bone up on the subject that dates back to the Victorian Era._

_Jan Hooks, owner of Late Bloomers in Chelsea Market says that…_

Frank can’t help but think of the flowers he’d given her what seems like forever ago. What were they? What meaning had he unintentionally given? Hell, what meaning would he give now? Pfft…it’s bullshit, but there’s something in him that eats up the article all the same.

Maybe it’s because he’s unsettled, off-kilter, not remotely surefooted. He thinks of his hazy memories, dulled by pain and blood loss, of her reaching for him across an elevator that had seemed a chasm. He remembers the look in her eyes, part plea, part wish, part confusion.

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get her feelings, though he’s not blind to them. How did she…why…what did she see in him? It had been so long since he had thought of anything but killing those responsible, carrying out his mission, commanding officer: himself.

The light outside flickers off, the sound of a car horn filtering up through his open window, and he sits up, back against the plaster wall.

Because he knows that’s a lie. You can’t live in a vacuum, not entirely. She’d seeped in through his cracks. He folds the article in his hand, in a rough semblance of the paper it was taken from, swats his palm once, twice, as he thinks.

Maria.

He figures it out then. That she is the thought in his mind when he considers Karen is the most telling thing of all. His gut twists with guilt. He taps the paper a few more times, the sound hollow against his hand.

Karen.

God what is this what is this fucking insanity how could he even consider?

He’s out of the bed and out on the street before he can think about it.

It’s 2 am in the city that never sleeps but it apparently missed the memo, the streets almost hushed as his boots hit the pavement, steam rising from the rain-soaked summer pavement.. He pulls a baseball cap low over his eyes that flick to the corner, spotting the traffic cameras, then flick back to the road ahead, the sidewalk, the alleyway. Habit, from when it meant life or death, and frankly it still does.

He passes the Papaya Dog, the jewelry store that’s a front to some kind of money laundering if he were to bet on it, the nail salon on the corner. The traffic picks up and he hunches his shoulders, because smaller is less memorable, and he’s too big a guy to not have to fake it. A few blocks of this and he’s there, her apartment at the end of the block, wreathed in shadow from a broken set of streetlamps - what was it with the lights in this town?

The suddenness of thought hits him, what he managed to escape on the way here. He has no idea what he’s doing here. What is he, gonna knock on her door at 2 am? Break through that shitty lock he keeps meaning to badger the super into replacing on the front entrance? Goddamn, he’s never felt more impulsive and stupid in his life. He’s poised to turn, on the balls of his feet, grace belying his frame, when he sees it.

Flowers, in her window. He wishes he’d studied the article harder, wishes he could make out the blooms, realizes he doesn’t need to. Because he knows, in the same way he knows why he’s here, why he’s come. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, pulls out his phone. Sends a text. And waits.


End file.
